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US
Obama plans to shut down Guantanamo
Article published on the 2008-11-11 Latest update 2008-11-11 10:16 TU
The prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
(Photo : AFP)
US President-elect Barack Obama is planning to close the Guantanamo Bay prison camp and send some prisoners back to their countries of origin, bring another group to face trial in the US and create a secret court to try the most sensitive cases, the Associated Press reported Monday.
Citing anonymous sources from the transition team, the AP reports that details and a timeline are still being worked out, as both Democrats and Republicans are already voicing opposition to the plan.
Some Republicans oppose the idea of bringing suspected terrorists onto American soil, while Democrats object to the creation of a new branch of the judicial system.
Democrats are more critical of Obama’s plan to give some prisoners full rights in the US court system, while restricting the rights of others under a yet to be determined new court system. This new court, according to the AP report, would be used to protect intelligence agents and US national security secrets being used to prosecute the case.
Obama has long voiced his criticism of the prison camp, which he has called “a sad chapter in American history.”
It was opened in 2002 and once housed as many as 775 suspected terrorists, dubbed “enemy combatants” after they were captured on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan. The vast majority of the detainees have never been charged nor tried. They exist in a legal limbo because they are considered neither regular prisoners, nor prisoners of war.
The Bush administration has been steadily reducing the number of prisoners amid international condemnation, including damning reports by both the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross.
White House spokesperson Dana Perino said Monday that the issues surrounding closing the camp are complex.
“We’ve tried very hard to explain to people how complicated it is. When you pick up people off the battlefield that have a terrorist background, it’s not just so easy to let them go,” Perino said. “These issues are complicated and we have put forward a process that we think will work in order to put them on trial through military tribunals.”
The lax evidence rules and intense secrecy of these military tribunals has been criticised by human rights groups, and a US Supreme Court decision in June upheld the detainees’ constitutional rights to civilian trials.
